It depends. College in the US is a really expensive entry ticket for lots of jobs (and for most of the well paying ones). Compared to universities in Germany (and from hearsay, other countries have more difficult, cheaper schools), there’s less work at a lower level, so you won’t learn as much (and it’s easier).

It’s possibly worth it if:

You’re just checking a box required for a well paying job you can reasonably expect to get after graduation

You’re not willing or able to study elsewhere

You’ve gotten into an Ivy League school or one with a great reputation for your specialty (RISD, Berkeley, Texas A&M, MIT, etc.).

it depends very widely on where you go, what funding assistance you have, what you study, how good you are at networking, and how diligent you are with creating opportunities while you are there

there is a potential great deal of value in a college degree but it’s not as simple as “show up for classes and do okay” to get a return that’s worth a 200k+ investment.

If you work diligently to keep your gpa very high, create relationships with professors and TAs, pursue internships and research opportunities, and study a field that has a likelihood for roi your chances go up. If you pursue scholarships and grants to offset the cost this of course makes things even easier in the long run at the expense of (sometimes significantly) more effort now.

You can also do the 2ish years of community college and transfer in to a more “prestigious” school to save money. You can also just go to community college. However, arguably the reason that you go to the more “prestigious” school is not necessarily for a much higher quality education, but for better opportunities with regards to networking, internships, and research projects. By cutting your time in the school in half (or not at all) you may severely hamper your ability to participate in these.

Of course as with all things there is risk. Just ask all the kids graduating right now from excellent schools with 4.0 gpas and solid resumes with comp sci/machine learning/comp engineering/etc degrees who are dying to find any kind of work. They basically busted their ass for 17 years straight because everyone told them this was basically a guaranteed path to six figures at 22 and now they’re sitting in their parents house, resentful as hell, constantly browsing linkedin (willing to relocate anywhere in america at this point) in between shifts at best buy

Also note that many graduate programs are free* — if you don’t count lost wages or the cost of the prerequisite undergrad degree.

But it all depends on what you want, with a fair amount of luck thrown in IMHO. You can have a lousy job with or without a degree, and you can have a great career with or without one.

From ed.gov:

Overall, the median lifetime earnings for all workers are $1.7 million, which is just under $42,000 per year ($20 per hour). Over a 40-year career, those who didn’t earn a high school diploma or GED are expected to bring in less than $1 million, which translates into slightly more than $24,000 a year ($11.70 per hour).

*Or rather, funded by your research/TA/etc.

First, let’s disregard the less tangible benefits of attending college. While I’m comfortable saying they’re “real,” they’re impossible to quantify and can be duplicated via other life experiences.

Given the huge number of jobs that have a degree as an initial filter, getting some bachelors’ degree from an accredited and “traditionally non-profit” college or university at a low relative cost is worth it. At the extreme end, two years of credits at a community college (with an eye towards transferring), followed by two more at the nearest state university, can be fairly low cost and low risk for the potential lifetime earnings bump.

Going to an Ivy or other famous door-opening institution is also worth it. Here’s where the doors that will be opened can actually be leveraged for opportunities to make even student loans a decent enough idea. You might even get a better education.

That huge gap in between is really just not worth it for most people who need a degree to get a job, at least not without someone else paying for it. There are always balancing priorities and uncertainties, but the middling liberal arts colleges and out-of-state football-factories of America are generally a terrible investment at the macro level, though even they still might be the right choice for particular students.

Taking out $300k of debt to attend Mount Froufrou College in Bumblefuck Indiana strikes me as the type of terrible (financial) decision that even an 18-year-old should know better than to take on.

Normally yes, but it depends on what one gets a degree in. I recall reading some analysis some years back that found that a theological degree was normally a net financial loss.

kagis

This isn’t the one I was thinking of, but it basically makes the same point.

https://freopp.org/whitepapers/is-college-worth-it-a-comprehensive-return-on-investment-analysis/

Is College Worth It? A Comprehensive Return on Investment Analysis

Some degrees are worth millions, while others have no net financial value. The biggest factor is your major.

According to their findings, getting an engineering degree is a very large win, for example. However, the majority of degrees in visual arts and music are a net negative.

It also says that going to a more-expensive school has a positive return on average, but the impact of that is much smaller than the degree which one chooses to study for:

Major is the most important factor. College rankings like the U.S. News and World Report emphasize choice of institution. But from a financial perspective, choice of major is the more important consideration. Major alone explains nearly half the variation in ROI. Students will have a much greater chance of financial success if they study engineering, computer science, nursing, or economics, rather than art, music, religion, psychology, or education.

This isn’t to say that lower-earning majors are worthless. Society needs artists and musicians. But low incomes for these majors signal a supply-demand mismatch. Universities are producing too many art majors and too few engineering majors relative to the number of jobs available in each of these fields. As a result, employers bid up the wages of engineers while surplus artists flood the labor market. The answer is not to eliminate low-earning majors nationwide, but to reduce their scale.